In this episode, Rob and Don explore the weird relationship between food and popular culture. From C3POs to Mac Tonight, the pair discuss how food is both shunned and adored in popular culture, and how this relationship has changed over time. Along the way, they ask the big questions, like “Can you eat D&D Monsters?” and “Why are North American so afraid of food in their media?” All this, and the Creepy Burger King, are waiting for you in this episode of the Department of Nerdly Affairs.

In this episode, Don and Rob are joined again by Professor Otaku to discuss the legendary tabletop miniatures game Warhammer. From the original Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay to the glory that is Warhammer 40k, the trio dive deep into the dark lore of the game which rules basement tables and hobby shops across the UK. Along the way, they discuss how the game has changed over the years, the things that make the Warhammer setting unique, and their own memories of playing the game. All this, and so much fun the inquisition would outlaw it, are waiting for you in this episode of the Department of Nerdly Affairs.

In this episode Don and Rob discuss Don’s view that tabletop RPGs and video games have influenced the way people write and consume stories. Delving deep into the topic, the pair discuss Kung Fu movies, westerns, Isekai stories and (naturally) litRPGs. All this and a deep discussion into where Dr. Who went wrong and how it’s connected to sitcoms, are waiting for you in this episode of The Department of Nerdly Affairs.

In this episode, Don and Rob enter the arena of giant robot combat with blazing hearts to face off with Professor Otaku- mecha history expert extraordinaire! The three discuss why Japan is so darn fascinated by giant robots, super robots vs. real robots, and the nature of mecha anime characters. Then, for the main event, Don and Professor Otaku spar off against each other over the Professor’s scathing review of G-Fighter Gundam in a clash so powerful that we only have audio because the cameras all melted! All this, and a surprisingly deep discussion of racism, are waiting for you in this episode of The Department of Nerdly Affairs.

In this episode, Don and Rob explore the place of UFOs in our popular culture with the help of Jack Ward. The trio explore the earliest UFO reports, talk about how UFOs have changed with the times, and what our ideas about aliens say about us. Along the way, Jack tells the story of his father’s UFO encounters, and they talk about their favorite alien-related movies. All this, and the 82 kinds of aliens, are waiting for you in this episode of the Department of Nerdly Affairs.

Dr. Edgar Mitchell (who passed away in 2016) was a NASA astronaut who traveled to (and walked on) the moon as part of the Apollo 14 mission in 1971. A Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, he once completed a record-breaking nine-hour, 24-minute EVA on the surface of the moon. In addition to his distinguished scientific career with NASA, he was a strong believer in metaphysical phenomena. He was a strong believer in the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life and claimed Earth had frequently been visited by aliens. Among the many times he made these assertions was in a 2009 interview with the Guardian:

“We are being visited,” [Mitchell] said. “It is now time to put away this embargo of truth about the alien presence. I call upon our government to open up … and become a part of this planetary community that is now trying to take our proper role as a spacefaring civilisation.”

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Leslie Kean- UFOs
Before writing UFOs, Kean co-founded the Coalition for Freedom of Information, an independent alliance advocating for greater government openness on information about UFOs. In this capacity, she was the plaintiff in a successful, five-year Freedom of Information Act federal lawsuit against NASA, which had withheld information concerning a crash of an object in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania in 1965. In 2007, Kean co-organized a landmark Washington DC international press conference on official UFO investigations, which received media coverage around the world. She was also a producer for the 2009 independent documentary I Know What I Saw directed by James Fox. She co-organized a 2013 international conference providing a platform for scientists, government officials and journalists studying UFOs to present data, and she lectured at American University in 2014.

Previously, Kean worked as a freelance writer and radio producer. In the 1990’s she was an on-air host for a daily investigative news program on KPFA radio, a Pacifica station in California. She contributed articles to dozens of publications here and abroad including the Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Providence Journal, International Herald Tribune, Globe and Mail, Sydney Morning Herald, The Nation, and Journal for Scientific Exploration.. Her stories were syndicated through Knight Ridder/Tribune, Scripps-Howard, New York Times wire service, Pacific News Service, and the National Publishers Association. While spending many years reporting on Burma, Kean coauthored Burma’s Revolution of the Spirit: The Struggle for Democratic Freedom and Dignity (Aperture, 1994). She contributed essays for a number of anthologies published between 1998 and 2009.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/201625/ufos-by-leslie-kean/9780307717085/

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American Government (Pentagon) admits
The Pentagon has officially confirmed that there was, in fact, a $22 million government program to collect and analyze “anomalous aerospace threats” — government-speak for UFOs.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/12/18/the-government-admits-it-studies-ufos-so-about-those-area-51-conspiracy-theories/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.2a60d2feba11

http://mentalfloss.com/article/63198/15-things-you-may-not-know-about-close-encounters-third-kind
– Spielberg partly based his idea on the research of Dr. J. Allen Hynek, a civilian scientific advisor to Project Blue Book who eventually admitted that 11 percent of the study’s findings about unidentified flying objects could not be explained using science. Hynek has a cameo
– Hynek, who also served as a technical advisor on the movie, makes an uncredited cameo in the final scene of the movie. You can spot him pretty easily—he’s the goateed man smoking a pipe and wearing a powder blue suit who pushes through the crowd of scientists to get a better look at the aliens.
-Spielberg approached French actors like Lino Ventura, Yves Montand, and Jean-Louis Trintignant to play Claude Lacombe—who was based on famous UFO researcher Jacques Vallée—before settling on director and sometimes-actor François Truffaut.
– Close Encounters was a forerunner for ET.
Puck would help inspire E.T. after Spielberg asked himself, “What if this little guy didn’t get back on the mothership?” Rambaldi would also go on to design the character of E.T.

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The situation on U.S. Navy Flight 19, from which the airplanes that appear in the Mexican desert came, disappeared off Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in December 1945. No trace has ever been found of “the Lost Flight 19,” which left the Naval Air Station near there in 1945.

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Project Serpo—an alleged human/alien exchange program between US military personnel and a race of extraterrestrials from the Zeta Reticuli star system. The story goes that, in July of 1965, twelve astronauts were taken to the planet Serpo aboard an alien spaceship and remained there for thirteen years. In exchange, the aliens left one of their own in the custody of the US government. This story didn’t emerge until 2005 in the form of a string of anonymous emails that were sent to selected UFO researchers, including Project Camelot/Avalon’s Bill Ryan, who created a website dedicated to the “leaks.”

Indeed, the first reports of flying saucers in the modern UFO era pre-date Hollywood’s first feature film about UFOs by three years. It was in 1947 that pilot Kenneth Arnold’s famous sighting gave rise to the “flying saucer” term, but it wasn’t until 1950 that Hollywood produced The Flying Saucer, a cheap attempt to cash-in on the UFO hysteria then sweeping America—a hysteria incited not by cinema, but by numerous reports nationwide of disc-shaped objects intruding upon America’s airspace.

Ever since 1950, the movie industry has been grabbing hold of UFOlogical concepts and popularizing them through the science-fiction genre: “Men in Black,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “The Fourth Kind,” “Area 51.” Hollywood didn’t create these terms, they were all part of the common language of UFOlogy decades before Hollywood lifted them. The same is true of the now-iconic image of the “Gray” alien—a form that has its roots in pre-existing UFO literature and which has since has found its way into some of the most popular science-fiction movies and TV shows of all time.

Travis Walton had described such entities as early as 1975. It wasn’t until two years later, in 1977, that Hollywood produced its first fully crystalized cinematic image of the Grays in Spielberg’s proudly UFOlogical Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The Grays in the movie were based directly on first-hand testimonies gathered by Spielberg’s production designer, Joe Alves.

Communion was adapted for Hollywood in 1989; its poster featured a full-face image of a Gray, staring hypnotically into the eyes of millions of creeped-out cinemagoers worldwide. Then followed Intruders (1992), a miniseries based directly on real-world descriptions of Grays as documented in abduction literature. More Grays would then appear in The X-Files (1993-), Babylon 5 (1994-1998), Dark Skies (1996-1997), and others. By the late-1990s, the image of the Gray had supplanted almost all other pre-existing cultural imaginings of what an alien might look like.

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Close Encounters
1st Kind- When a person sees a UFO within 150 metres
2nd Kind- Leaves evidence such as scorch marks
3rd Kind- Visible aliens in or out of craft
4th Kind- Taken and experimented on
5th Kind- Mutual Bilateral Communication
http://new.cseti.org/ce5initiative.html

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Dad’s experiences

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James Forrestal’s Death
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Forrestal
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In this episode, Don and Rob sit down with Jack Ward to discuss portrayals of Intelligence in popular culture. The three delve into the hows and whys of the way smart people are portrayed the way they are in the media, the difference between wisdom and intelligence, and how it’s all linked with the ways the human brain works. All this, and why Daniel Kahneman is the most important person you’ve never heard of, is waiting for you in this episode of the Department of Nerdly Affairs.

In this episode, Don and Rob look at cultural views of strength in the media. The pair explore why lead characters being strong is so important to North American audiences, how views of strength have changed over time, and what a strong female fighter really means. All this, and how Free to Be You and Me destroyed a generation, is waiting for you in this episode of the Department of Nerdly Affairs.

In this episode, Don and Rob are joined by Jack Ward to go where no man has boldly gone before! The past and future collide as the three discuss the history of Trek and whether or not it’s still relevant in today’s world. All this, and Jack and Rob’s big throwdown on Star Trek Enterprise, is waiting for you in this episode of the Department of Nerdly Affairs.

In this episode, Rob and Don finish their discussion of the History of Japanese Comics. Starting in the 1980’s, they discuss the rise and fall of Shonen Jump, how Dragonball changed everything, and how modern manga have been influenced by animation. All this, and Bakuman, in this episode of the Department of Nerdly Affairs.

In this episode, Don and Rob are joined by their friend Richard Moule to discuss music and how it affects us. The trio explore the physical processes behind our reactions and interactions with music and discuss how music and humans evolved together over time. The three also delve into music as soundtrack, and discuss the ways in which moviemakers use music to control and shape the emotions of the audience. All this, and why John Williams owes Gustav Holst royalties is waiting for you in this episode of the Department of Nerdly Affairs.

About Us

The Department of Nerdly Affairs is a bi-weekly talk podcast dedicated to exploring different aspects of nerdly arts and culture. Together bringing over 80 years of experience to the table, the hosts, Rob and Don, try to take a seasoned, knowledgeable, and real-world approach to looking at the creation of nerd culture and the forces shaping it. The podcast covers topics ranging from from film and comics to writing and history, and pretty much everything in between. If it's a hobby shared by few or by many, you can expect to hear it talked about by the Department of Nerdly Affairs. New episodes every second Friday!

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